NWF baseball falls on the road at Tallahassee
TALLAHASSEE, FL - Less than 24 hours after capturing a thrilling, come from behind victory over Tallahassee Community College on Friday afternoon, the Northwest Florida baseball team loaded the bus to travel to play the Eagles again. Both teams are firmly entrenched in battle a post-season berth and Saturday's matchup was the last time NWF and TCC would face each other in the regular season. Unfortunately for the Raiders, the exhilarating momentum created from Friday's win failed to make the bus trip, as NWF was defeated by the Eagles, 6-1. The loss drops the Raiders one game back of the Eagles with just two games remaining in the regular season.
Northwest Florida got behind early and just could not get over the hump the rest of the way. Tallahassee opened up scoring in the second inning with a solo homer and tacked on another run to take an early 2-0 lead.
The score would remain 2-0 until the sixth inning when the Raiders seemed poised for a big inning with a runner on second and nobody out. Two sacrifice outs later, the rally was silenced with NWF plating one run to cut the deficit to 2-1.
The Eagles, however, would answer with a run of their on in the bottom half of the inning to reclaim a 2-run advantage at 3-1. In the bottom of the eighth inning, TCC provided three insurance runs to go ahead 6-1 to seal the win for the home team.
Joel Sarver took the loss for Northwest Florida. The righthander was solid for six innings, allowing three runs on seven hits, striking out four and walking one.
The Raider offense totaled seven hits in the game. Cade Easterbrook and AJ Frtiz each collected multiple hits on the day.
Northwest Florida now moves to 30-18 overall and 11-11 in conference play. The Raiders wrap up the regular season with a two-game series against Chipola on Monday, April 24 in Marianna, FL at 5:00 PM and at home on Wednesday, April 26 at 3:00 PM.
For more information on Northwest Florida State athletics, visit NWFRaiders.com or follow @NWFRaiders on Twitter.